Chapter 12
It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth birthday, as he often remembered afterwards.
He was walking home about eleven oclock from Lord Henrys, where he had been dining, and was ed in heavy furs, as the night was cold and foggy. At the er of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of his grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian reized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for which he could not at, came over him. He made no sign nition a on quickly in the dire of his own house.
But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was on his arm.
"Dorian! What araordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for you in your library ever sinine oclock. Finally I took pity on your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wao see you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as you passed me. But I wasnt quite sure. Didnt ynize me?"
"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I t even reize Grosvenor Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I dont feel at all certain about it. I am sorry yoing away, as I have not seen you fes. But I suppose you will be back soon?"
"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I io take a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great picture I have in my head. However, it wasnt about myself I wao talk. Here we are at your door. Let me e in for a moment. I have something to say to you."
"I shall be charmed. But wont you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray languidly as he passed up the steps and opehe door with his latch-key.
The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his watch. "I have heaps of time," he answered. "The trai go till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my way to the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shant have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I have with me is in this bag, and I easily get to Victoria iy minutes."
Dorian looked at him and smiled. "What a way for a fashionable paio travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! e in, or the fog will get into the house. And mind you dont talk about anything serious. Nothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be."
Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the library. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large opeh. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case stood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on a little marqueterie table.
"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. He is a most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Fren you used to have. What has bee of the Fren, by the bye?"
Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I believe he married Lady Radleys maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. Anglomanie is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly of the French, doesnt it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to plain about. Oen imagihings that are quite absurd. He was really very devoted t